bows
For centuries moms have been trying to find new ways to add bling to their daughters look. Maybe it wasn’t always called bling, but moms of daughters know that if you don’t add bling, everyone thinks you had a son…and there is nothing worse than having people think that your little princess is being mistaken for a prince. It’s really never to early to add bling to your little girl’s look, and the options are endless, but there have been some things that have evolved over the years. One of them is the headband…or bow, as it probably started out to be.
When my girls were babies, they didn’t make headbands for babies. I was told to use corn syrup to hold a little bow on their heads so they looked like girls…not that corn syrup worked, but I gave it a try. I decided to put bonnets on my 
girls, because I couldn’t make anything work to keep a bow on their head, until they finally had enough hair to use a teeny rubber band and whatever ribbon was handy…gift wrap worked quite well. Needless to say, they wore bonnets for a long time.
Headbands have changed a lot over the years, and the modern baby headband is probably the most stylish of them all. These days baby girls can wear anything from bows, to flowers, to their parents team colors, but in the twenties, headbands looked a little bit like the sweatband that people used to wear a lot to control sweat on the forehead during workouts. I’m sure the people living in the twenties thought they were very stylish, but to me they looked a bit like a devise used for carrying baskets of food from the market in some of the Middle East countries. The band often has big bows on the sides, and it makes the little girl’s head look huge…but that’s just my opinion.
There is nothing new about headbands and other bling, except the name. I remember putting nail polish on my kids and granddaughter’s nails at a very young age. They loved it. It made them feel pretty, and as all women know, that is the name of the game. I don’t think it is even as important to look pretty to others, as much as it is to feel pretty to ourselves. When you wake up, and nothing works with your look, it makes you feel…well, blah!!! It is a completely unacceptable feeling, and when you add a little bling, it just improves the whole look. And it doesn’t matter if you are 1 month or 80 years old. Girls…very simply…like bling!!
It is a dilemma that every mother of a baby girl has had at one time or another. That statement that was intended as sweet, that came out as insulting…at least to the mom. You know the one, “Oh, he is just adorable and so handsome!” Your first thought is, “Really, you think my little girl looks like a boy…Seriously!! I mean she is wearing pink, for Pete’s sake!!” Deep down you know that it is very hard to tell a girl baby from a boy baby, but you secretly hoped your little princess would be the exception to the rule…you know, the one that was so beautiful, even as an infant that it was obvious that she was a girl. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case, and you try to control your tongue as you stand there seething for the third time this shopping trip. You grit your teeth, and say,”She’s a girl!” Of course, the person in front of you, who now knows very well that they have insulted you and your little princess, meant nothing by it, and really wishes they could become invisible…or better yet that they had kept their comment generic, so they would not find themselves in the position they now find themselves in, but it is too late. They apologize and quickly move away, but you are left with the knowledge that you have to do something to protect your darling little daughter from such abusive remarks in the future.
So, since you are already in the store, you set out to solve this problem, once and for all. Obviously, pink isn’t the answer, so what is next. I mean, she doesn’t have enough hair for ribbons or bows yet. Well, when my daughters were babies, there were no baby headbands, but I’m sure many of you are starting to see where the idea for a baby headband came from. My mother’s generation tried many things to girlify their daughters. Even dresses weren’t totally helpful, because many people back when my parents 
were little put both boys and girls in a long baby gown. And even when my girls were babies, there was the pajama sack…a night gown that had the bottom sewed up to keep their little feet inside and warm.
My mother told me to tape a bow to their heads, or use corn syrup to make it stick. I never really liked the mess that made, so I determined to find another way. I suppose many people would think I was trying to go back to the Old West, but I never really thought of it that way when put their little bonnets on my girls heads. All I knew is that they looked so cute, and no one would think they were boys again!
